Mercedes-Benz Brisbane Fashion Festival

In a residential side street off the main drag in the fashionable Brisbane suburb of New Farm is an expansive double-storey Queenslander desperately in need of some TLC.

The property used to be a boarding house, but these days it is the new headquarters for the Brisbane Fashion Festival.

Inside works festival director Lindsay Bennett and his team – all up, just five staff.

It’s not an inappropriate metaphor for the Brisbane Fashion Festival itself – Bennett saw the potential, invested in it, and has now brought out its best features.

The move to bigger headquarters comes before the eighth festival starts on August 25. But don’t let the renovation rescue fool you – this is no pokey provincial event (and, in a few weeks, the Queenslander itself will be suitably fashionable too).

Like its Sydney, New York, Miami, Berlin and other global counterparts, the Brisbane fashion festival has Mercedes-Benz as naming rights sponsor, so it automatically comes with a highest-standard caveat.

Sell-out expected

The festival has not had the smoothest of rides of late, but the indefatigable Bennett is looking forward to putting on a sellout event in August.

In 2011, Brisbane was recovering from the catastrophic floods – and Bennett thought long and hard about whether to even hold the event. It went ahead, and provided a much-needed financial boost to local designers and retailers.

Last year, guests at the opening night show had to be evacuated due to safety concerns at the specially erected marquee in Queens Park.

This year, Bennett has to contend with a government funding shortfall.

But the show must, and will, go on.

Unlike Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia (held in Sydney in March) which is an industry-only event – geared towards the media and buyers – the consumer-focused Brisbane festival is unapologetically and purely about money. Making money for local designers, that is.

Embracing the runway-to-reality mentality wholeheartedly, Bennett says the festival is a proven driver of sales. What you see on the runway in the evening, you can buy the next morning.

August tough for sales

“Traditionally, August is a very hard time to generate sales, particularly in that transition period between drops in stores,” says Bennett.

“We’re very fortunate here in Queensland that the climate is perfect for launching spring/summer collections. Down south they’re launching spring/ summer at the same time but it’s still cold, so they’re not getting the immediate return on investment that we get up here.”

And unlike fashion counterparts in other capital cities such as Melbourne and Sydney, the Brisbane event is extremely good value for money. It costs the designers just $3000 to show their spring/summer collection.

During Fashion Week Australia, the cost can range from a few thousand to $120,000.

Nonetheless, Bennett says every dollar counts in these relentlessly tough times for retail. “A dollar is a dollar, and at the end of the day if a designer has to invest $300 or $3000, they’ve got to sell an awful lot of frocks to recoup that.

Serious business

“It’s no longer just airy-fairy, ‘I just want to be seen and be backstage dressing models’. It is a serious business. And if you look at the likes of [couturier] Paul Hunt here in Brisbane, his gowns retail from $3000 to $10,000.”

The festival, held at City Hall, costs $850,000 to stage. This year, there will be eight shows (down from 12 last year) and the event has been shortened from seven days to five.

Bennett expects approximately 7000 fashion fans to attend the ticketed events this year.

Even with 700 seats a show, and $52 a ticket, the maths would suggest this is not a hugely profitable exercise.

It might be good for the designers – at $3000 a pop and consistent feedback that collections sell out within days of their festival show – but Bennett says it would be a relief to make a profit this year.

“It has not been a profitable thing for us,” he admits.“We have already had some significant losses in a number of years. Last year was a loss, the year before that we made a small profit.

“I am hoping this year that we do make some money because the amount of time and money that my partner and I actually invested in this business makes it really hard. Everyone else gets paid but we don’t get a cent until everything else is covered.”

While Mercedes-Benz has been naming rights sponsor since the beginning, the sponsorship deal is an annual renewal system, so at the end of the year Bennett will once again need to present his case.

Sponsorship landscape is tough

Other sponsors include Napoleon Perdis, Schwarzkopf, Epicure, Network Ten and Myer. The sponsorship landscape in Brisbane is “incredibly tough,” admits Bennett. “You’re working just as hard for a much smaller amount . . . And then to have lost state government and local government funding . . . But we’ll persevere and keep cutting the cloth to suit.”

Last year, the newly elected Queensland Liberal state government, under Campbell Newman as Premier, pulled out of their long-standing $100,000 commitment to the festival.

“It is disappointing that we don’t seem to have their support,” Bennett says. “Rightly or wrongly, that’s their choice. I’m not there to really bicker about it, but when you compare that with NSW or Victoria, where they invest millions of dollars in their fashion festivals . . . well, it’s just not high on their priority list right now.

“It is tough for every state. But I think this is a different sort of a platform that state government could really embrace and leverage. They’re great for looking after sporting events, but when it comes to fashion and retail some may say it’s frivolous, but it’s not. It’s a serious business and it’s one that really does need to be considered and looked after.”

If money were no object, Bennett says, the ideal festival would include more national as well as international designers, in particular those luxury labels that have opened boutiques in Brisbane in the last decade.

“Wouldn’t it be great to see a Gucci show here?” he enthuses.

More to do in Brisbane: take a walk on the style side

Amanda Kruse greets me in the hotel lobby with a huge smile, a friendly handshake and a branded Shop in Style Escape canvas bag, full of water, chocolate and other sustenance to get me through the next three hours.

Kruse runs walking tours of Brisbane’s fashion and design hot spots. She is an enthusiastic promoter of Brisbane’s hidden laneways, boutique shops and quirky refuel stops. Taking into account that the vast majority of her clientele is female, Kruse has scheduled makeovers and foot massages into the itineraries.

Oh, and a couple of glasses of champagne along the way.

But she has also tapped into the ever-growing market of fashion-conscious men, with a new tour especially designed around the best in menswear. Individually tailored tours are also a speciality.

Walking in and out of boutiques, where Kruse is greeted like a long-lost friend, receiving personalised walk-throughs of a designer’s new collection from the designer, touching, feeling and trying on garments, discovering nooks and side streets – all while being entertained by the effervescent and personable Kruse – is not a bad way to fall in love with Brisbane.

I come away with a stunning pair of earrings and a floral summer frock. And I learn how to create a smoky eye.

The three-hour tours, which depart twice daily, cost just $99 per person. The tours take in the fashion-forward Fortitude Valley, full of hipsters and skinny people in black, Paddington with beautiful heritage Queenslanders and antique shops, and the city centre, which has become a luxury hub. Book at www.shopinstyleescape.com. KK

The Australian Financial Review

BY Katarina Kroslakova

Katarina Kroslakova is the editor of Life & Leisure
weekly
and also Luxury magazine. She writes on fashion, travel and the
arts.